Songs of Christmas

To
get in the mood, I've been listening to Christmas songs on the radio
as I wrap gifts for children, grandchildren, friends. The songs
triggered more than I'd bargained for. Bing Crosby's "White Christmas"
is a song that brought tears to my mother's eyes, during WWII.
Elvis's "Blue Christmas" was my coming of age (first kiss), and
"The Most Wonderful Time of the Year" with Andy Williams, on whose
NBC show I worked later in life. Suddenly on the radio bounces Gene
Autry's "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer," and up comes the memory
of working at Lamston's Five & Ten Cent Store during Christmas week
when school was out.

I stole a lipstick sample from their cosmetic counter and my mother
made me take it back. (Shaming is much more effective than spanking.)
While I was force-apologizing to the manager, he offered me a part-time
job, and I wanted to earn money to buy presents for my family and
friends. So there I am the following week, Employee No 163, timecard
and all, at 14 years old, with a work permit (you could get permits
that young when school was not in session), and where does the store
station inexperienced me? At the toy counter, the busiest counter
in the entire store for the entire year and where Gene Autry's "Rudolph
The Red Nosed Reindeer" was looped and played all day long. ALL
DAY LONG!!! And loud.

I got stuck
wrapping big Tonka trucks ("I want it in a box." "It's already in
a box." "No, I want another box outside that box."), toy trains
("Where's the box? It's supposed to be in a box."), dolls ("Watch
out you don't mess up her hair! That's real hair, y'know.") People
were often quite rude. ("Are you sure you know what you're doing?")
They shouldn't holler at a kid like me. I had a home for that. Such
a hollerer was the customer who had ten comic books in her hand.
"How much?" she asked. I told her what the store taught me: price
of the item plus tax. "Ten cents each plus tax." "Whaddya mean tax?
Why should I pay tax on comics?" I said the truth: "I don't know.
You just do." She lost it and shrieked, "I DON'T HAVE TO PAY TAX
FOR COMICS AT THE CORNER DRUGSTORE!" I could feel my face burning
as other customers were standing there watching, waiting to be helped,
as "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer blared nonstop. So I did all
I could think of. I hollered back at her, "THEN BUY THEM AT THE
DRUGSTORE, WHY DONTCHA!," yanking the comics from her hand.

I guess we could be heard, even over Rudolph, because the manager
came over, apologized profusely to the customer, gave her the comics
for nothing, told me to follow him to his office, advised me my
paycheck would be docked the full cost of the comics, and fired
me. That paycheck, my first ever, was spent, but I kept the envelope.
On the back (shown) you can see my employee number and amount of
check ($7.57, down from $8.57) and, on the front, was written "My
first pay! Lamstons 5 & 10, Dec. 21." It was stuck in my high school
diary and I dug it out just for this.

Moral of the
Story: It's good to remember painful days of childhood when you
hear Christmas songs - even if only something to admit to a million
lives later, on the internet.

Maggie
Van Ostrand's Christmas

The
Christmas Flower
Once upon a time in Mexico, a little boy was walking to church on
Christmas Eve. He wanted to see the Nativity scene. He thought hard
about a gift to bring the Christ child, but had no money to buy
one....

A
Higher Calling
Once upon a time just a few years ago, a little pine tree stood
in the deep forest, isolated and naked. He wondered aloud why he
was so small and skinny while a big pine tree standing just several
feet away had so many full and lusty branches.

Las
Posadas
Not that the commercialization of Christmas has totally taken over
... Las Posadas begins on December 16th and continues each night
through Christmas eve. ...

Christmas
Shopping
Christmas shopping for me will always be the once-upon-a-time of
memory: walking on Fifth Avenue ó it's probably snowing, windows
decorated like the fairy tales of childhood...

The
Crookedest Christmas Tree
There's something obscene about spending so much money at Christmastime.
Itís not like weíre the Three Wise Men hiking across the desert
to gift the baby Jesus. I donít even know what frankincense is,
let alone myrrh. So letís get down to the most important symbol
of all: the Christmas tree itself...

A
Blue Christmas
In the vast fellowship of Christendom, December 25th is a time to
celebrate the birth of Christ by attending church, singing carols,
and watching "It's A Wonderful Life." The Christmas season is an
occasion for tree-trimming and the giving of gifts to loved ones
-- gifts once symbolic, now spendaholic.

The
Truth About Rudolph
Each reindeer can pull up to twice its own weight, making it an
ideal animal for pulling a sleigh loaded down with Christmas gifts

Christmas
Past
Want to have a wonderful Christmas without fighting traffic, battling
mall moms, or spending any money whatsoever? It can be done, trust
me. The best Christmas in my family was a broke one. I had lost
everything in a fire just two weeks before Christmas...

The
Night the Posse Chased Santa
"[T]he most spectacular crime in the history of the Southwest ...
surpassing any in which Billy the Kid or the James boys had ever
figured."